


Taken By Surprise (Johnlock

by wingsofduskanddawn



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: M/M, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-31
Updated: 2014-08-31
Packaged: 2018-02-15 12:29:57
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,295
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2229060
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wingsofduskanddawn/pseuds/wingsofduskanddawn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sherlock finally works up the courage to kiss John, but doesn't explain why. John, assuming it's all an experiment, goes on a date he had planned before that. Can they work through their misunderstanding, or will Sherlock end up heartbroken? Don't worry; I'm nice.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Taken By Surprise (Johnlock

A/N: Okay, I'd been contemplating writing this for a while, though I originally thought it was going to be part of "A Different Kind of Science." It didn't work out that way, but I was totally okay with that, even though the idea kind of hung around, waiting. Basically, I wanted to have Sherlock kiss John, have John misunderstand it, and have them work it all out and have some rocking make up sex. This piece turned out a bit longer, and a bit more sentimental, than I expected, but I figure that's part of the fun of it. If the muses didn't get drunk sometimes, writing wouldn't be half as fun as it is. I'll quit blabbing now, and let you enjoy.

It was a quiet afternoon in Baker Street, which was strange in and of itself. The nice kind of strange for John Watson, who appreciated the calmness after two days of running about London chasing his lunatic of a flat mate, partner, and best friend, Sherlock Holmes. But for Sherlock, the silence wasn't so nice. It was full of all the things he was thinking but didn't know how to express, full of bloody sentiment and fantasies he'd never have so much as had before John Watson had walked into his life, offered him his phone to borrow, and proceeded to shoot a cabby for him, all in such a short time he wasn't really sure how it had happened.

Sherlock could have easily worked himself into a strop over that. It wouldn't be the first time he'd reacted childishly to appearances of unwanted sentiment, after all. However, he had come to understand after several months that the sentiment was not going to go away no matter how much he pretended otherwise. Never one to argue with reality, Sherlock had done something that anyone who knew him and his loathing for the very idea of emotion would have believed—he'd accepted it.

Now it was just a matter of figuring out what to do with it. He was tempted to experiment. If he could figure out a few of the other variables, such as how John felt and how far it went, he might better understand how to process and deal with his latest puzzle. However, John wasn't the type of person who liked to sit down and talk about feelings, and Sherlock felt it would be a bad idea to approach the matter from that angle.

The only way to get a true answer to his questions, he supposed, was to test them without giving John a warning, thereby rendering the experiment corrupt before he'd even properly gotten into it. He'd devised a simple test, one he had fought himself over for weeks before finally deciding that tonight, tonight would be the night he went through it.

They'd just wrapped up a case, and Sherlock's mind was relatively calm. He knew that soon, the need for a case would hit him again, and that he would be off again, needing to rush around London and solve crimes, always hoping to find someone who would do something new and fascinating that might occupy him for a couple of days. Today, however, he felt okay, and that meant it was time to stop procrastinating. He was rarely nervous about anything, and wasn't going to let it rule him now.

Casually, oh so casually, Sherlock rose from his chair, snagging John's empty cuppa on his way out to the kitchen. The doctor ignored him and continued to read his journal, absorbed in a fascinating article about head lice. He'd barely noticed Sherlock's actions, and wasn't going to be reaching for his tea anyway, because it was empty already. He had planned to get up and make them both another when he finished the article, of course, but even as he closed the medical journal and set it aside, Sherlock was back, setting his cup exactly where it had been.

John's brows furrowed in confusion; this was definitely not normal Sherlock behavior. Even though Sherlock routinely did strange things, he had something of a routine while they were at Baker Street, and one of the hard and fast rules they'd developed over their time together was that John was the one who did all the boring, domestic stuff, even when Sherlock had plenty of time to spare.

Noticing that Sherlock hadn't stuck around awaiting praise for his actions, John's eyes narrowed slightly, suspicious. It wasn't like Sherlock to do something nice for the hell of it, and even though he'd been behaving a little more kindly toward John the past couple of months, this was territory uncharted. He nearly opened his mouth to ask what experiment Sherlock was running this time when the genius turned toward the window, cup raised to his lips, sunlight catching his eyes for a moment.

Sherlock looked nervous, John realized, and he took note of the way his hand was clenched just a little too tightly over the handle of his cup, his face just a little too pale, blinking a little more frequently than normal. These were his tells, though they manifested themselves so rarely John rarely had a chance to study them. It was strange; if he'd been experimenting, he would no longer have been nervous. He might have been until John had taken his first sip, but after that, he would have been watching him for reactions, not looking anywhere but at the loyal doctor.

So his tea wasn't spiked, then. So what was it? Sherlock never behaved like this, unless one or both of them had nearly just died. Actually, he wasn't usually nervous when he himself had nearly died. It only seemed to bother him, and only in the last little while, when John had nearly been killed. The doctor was now desperately curious to know what was going on in Sherlock's mind, because he was putting pieces together, and realized Sherlock hadn't been quite the same around him since the incident at the pool.

"Sherlock?" John asked, and the consulting detective set down his cup and rose to pick up his violin. At first, John thought he might be trying to ignore him, but he turned to look at John while he played, one elegant eyebrow raised in silent question that was an answer to John's.

"Is everything okay with you?" John knew better than to reference the things he'd noticed, for fear that Sherlock would cover them up and he would have no way of knowing when the genius was ill at ease. Instead, he simply watched him cautiously, fully expecting him to whirl around and never answer.

"Do you ever feel, John, as if you're standing at the precipice of something fantastic, and are terrified of reaching for what you want because you're not at all sure you can reach it? That you might stretch out your arm and find it slipping through your fingers, leaving you to tumble into nothingness?"

For Sherlock to inquire about anything having to do with feelings, let alone word it in such a fanciful way, was so extraordinary that John nearly dropped his cuppa with his suddenly nerveless fingers. It was only habit that kept him from losing it, and that habit let him set it aside while he tried to process the question, let alone figure out a way to answer it.

"I… Well, yes. I feel that way… quite a lot, actually." It was difficult for John to discuss emotions, even in an abstract way, and this was not abstract in any way. But he decided to be honest, just because he knew Sherlock wouldn't understand where the feelings were coming from anyway. If he was going to try and access the part of himself that did feel, John wasn't going to lie to Sherlock and possibly leave him even more confused about things than he already was.

"It's infuriating." With that, Sherlock spun around and began to play louder, a clear indication that he was done with the conversation. He continued to play for the next hour, and then finished one final song. Taking a deep breath and letting it out, Sherlock finally set the instrument aside, stretching his arms above his head briefly before turning around.

Then, as casual as you please, Sherlock walked over, kissed John on the mouth lingeringly, and proceeded out to the kitchen to work on an experiment.

John sat there, dumbstruck, for a long moment. He became aware, gradually, that his mouth was hanging open a little bit, and abruptly shut it. Then he ran his hands down his trousers, twice, trying to smooth out his tensed nerves.

Not at all sure what the hell had just happened, John nearly turned around to try and talk about it with Sherlock, but then his phone went off, and he turned to it, distracted.

It was a reminder alert, and he realized only now that he'd agreed to go on a date with a pretty girl he'd met at the office named Josie, and was due to pick her up in less than an hour. Cursing, he practically ran for the shower, getting ready at breakneck speed. He dressed quickly but carefully, choosing his lucky pants on the off chance that something good might happen, even though he doubted it. He wasn't even sure he wanted anything to happen; what Sherlock had just done had shaken him up, stirring to wakefulness the desire and love that had been brewing in him for months. However, he hated to be rude, and wasn't going to cancel on Josie at the last minute, especially as he wasn't sure what the hell Sherlock had meant by kissing him.

Bolting down the stairs even as he put on his tie, John called out to Sherlock that he shouldn't wait up, and tugged his jacket on as he descended the stairs to leave 221B. In the wake of the whirlwind he'd just experienced, Sherlock stared at the closed door, heart breaking in his eyes as tears, something he hadn't experienced in years, began to burn the backs of them.

Sherlock had kissed John. John went out on a date not more than an hour later. Conclusion: John had felt nothing from their kiss, or at least, he'd not felt anything that made him not want to go out and shag a random female. That was painful, extremely so, and Sherlock carried himself to his bedroom, collapsed, and proceeded to cry silently, his body wracked with painful sobs even as he bit his lip hard so he wouldn't make noise. No one was there to hear him, but it didn't matter. Even though he felt painfully lonely in that moment, broken beyond repair, he didn't want to risk that Mrs. Hudson, or even John, might come up to the flat and catch him at it.

He knew he couldn't deal with explaining his feelings to anyone, not that night. When the tears dried up a couple of hours later, and John still wasn't home, Sherlock cleaned himself up as best he could in the bathroom and stared at his reflection for a long moment.

Face too pale, eyes rimmed in red and hair far more disheveled than usual, Sherlock looked a little terrifying even to himself. He reminded himself of the man he'd been before John, when he'd always been high or contemplating it. It was a face he'd hoped he'd never see again, and he realized something, in that moment. He'd replaced one addiction with another, trading the drugs, which left him cold and distant, with John, who warmed his soul and brought him to life when he hadn't even realized he'd only been surviving, before.

Still, the result was pretty much the same. He felt ravaged by the feelings, and wished desperately that he could shut them out again, hid himself away where they couldn't find him and torture him with visions of John in the arms of another, holding and caressing and kissing…

Letting out an anguished sound, the first noise that had passed his lips since before John had left, before the kiss that had changed everything for him, and apparently nothing for John, Sherlock fled back through the flat and locked himself inside his room. The temptation to shoot up was there, as it always was, but it was stronger now. He tried to block it out, knowing that to lose John's friendship would send him over the edge he was currently walking and that John would be disappointed in him if he gave in, and then he closed his eyes.

Sherlock was still shaking when he slipped into an exhausted, painful sleep, not resting at all. Nightmares were common for him, when he did choose to sleep, and his vivid imagination was hard at work tonight, conjuring up all sorts of scenarios in which John threw his feelings back at him, left him, called him cruel things and laughed at him. It hurt, more than any words even he knew could express, but Sherlock didn't want to wake up and face a reality that might well hurt worse.

He wrapped himself in the nightmares, holding the pain at the forefront of his mind even as he tried to escape it, burrow down deep into the darkness he'd always lingered at the edge of. He couldn't seem to find it now, and knew well why. In order to immerse himself in it, he would have to pay the price, which in this case was to give John up. And he knew he could never do that, even if John was basically already gone, lost to him before he'd ever had a chance to make it work.

John returned home at three in the morning, completely exhausted. He'd taken Josie out to a nice dinner, and things had gone rapidly downhill from there. She'd ordered a salad, but had neglected to mention to the staff that she had a nut allergy. And she'd been too busy trying to talk him into heading straight back to her place to notice the nuts scattered through her salad, which had resulted into a trip to the A&E after some quick thinking on John's part saved her from suffocating after only a couple of bites.

He hadn't wanted to leave her alone in the hospital until her family got there, and since she was sort of one of his patients, he'd felt somewhat obligated to stay with her. She'd angled for another date, but between the disaster their first one had been, and the fact that he had Sherlock at home, possibly feeling about him the same way John felt about the genius, he'd deftly avoided her not so subtle suggestions and left as soon as he could safely do so.

He was tired when he got in, and much of him just wanted to sleep, but he was surprised that Sherlock wasn't in the living room or the kitchen. In fact, every light in the house was off, and Sherlock's door was closed. He'd clearly taken John's advice to not wait up, and John couldn't help being disappointed. Had kissing the doctor meant so little to him?

John went to bed, resolved to discuss it with him in the morning. But when the morning came, Sherlock ignored him completely, didn't even bother to drink the tea John sat at his elbow. He played the violin all morning long, and John grew increasingly agitated. When Sherlock's phone went off, the genius picked up quickly, and his voice was terse and cold, even more so than usual. However, when Lestrade let him know he had a case, he set down his violin and quit the flat without asking John if he wanted to go along. Just before he shut the door their eyes locked for a moment, and John was amazed to see raw pain shimmering in Sherlock's.

Then he was gone, and John was left alone all day to try and figure out what had been going on in Sherlock's head. He knew the pain hadn't been put on, if only because it had been barely a flash of emotion. When Sherlock tried to guilt trip people, he laid it on thick, rather than offering up a glimpse before shutting them out. John had never seen the genius like this, and began to think that he must have done something.

By the time Sherlock got home, John had figured it out. He'd hurt Sherlock by running out after the kiss, and John began to realize, too late, that Sherlock's very nonchalance had been his warning that it meant something to the genius. He'd just missed it, and managed to ruin everything as a result. He was wondering if it was even possible for him to fix it, when Sherlock strode through the door, paused when he saw John sitting at the table, and then kept right on going, grabbing his violin before heading to his room and slamming the door.

The doctor winced at the slam, which reminded him of gunfire, and he certainly felt as if he'd just been shot. Sherlock hadn't so much as glanced at him, but his shoulders had been hunched, in a way they rarely were after he solved a case.

And John knew he'd solved it. Lestrade had texted him to ask what was wrong with the tall man when he'd shown up at the scene, rambled on about the murderer in a monotone voice that suggested he was extremely uninterested despite the fact that it was about a 7 on his scale, and then left without even offering to help arrest the man. He'd lost his spark entirely, it seemed, and Greg had been very concerned.

John had assured him he'd deal with it, but the truth was, he didn't know how to go about doing it. Deciding he needed to work up his courage fast, he made them both tea and carefully held both handles with one hand while he knocked tentatively on Sherlock's bedroom door with the other. The music didn't stop, didn't even pause, and John realized the genius was going to make this extremely hard on him. But he'd been in the army, and was brave enough that he found the courage to open the door anyway, only to drop the cups, stunned at what he saw.

Sherlock was crying. He was holding his violin like a lover, running the bow back and forth across the strings and playing the most heartbreakingly beautiful music, and tears were leaking from his eyes. He whirled around when he realized John was behind him, those indescribable eyes wide with shock, pain, and fear, and the bow slid from his fingertips, the violin staying in place only because it was lodged against his shoulder.

John crossed the room and took the violin gently, before reaching up to wipe away his tears. Sherlock flinched back, let out a small whimper, and then he was suddenly in John's arms, face buried in the crook of his neck while he let out small, fragile sounds, shaking and leaking and seemingly falling apart.

Making small noises he hoped were soothing, John swept Sherlock up into his arms and carried him to the bed, sitting down with the taller man in his lap. The consulting detective just kept crying, letting out tears for the second time in as many days when he hadn't let them out for more than two decades prior, and John stroked a hand down his back, knowing it would be a while. He held him tight, trying to comfort him, but only when he kissed the top of Sherlock's head did those tears slow enough for the genius to pull back and stare at him, eyes full of wonder.

John kissed his face, then, his cheeks and forehead and eyelids and eventually those lips, which parted for him in surprise while those brilliant eyes, so bright and lovely, stayed on his the entire time.

When he was confident that Sherlock was calmed down, John reached over and grabbed a tissue from the nightstand, cleaning his face up with infinite gentleness. Sherlock looked confused and just a little bit wild, and John chuckled softly, before carding his fingers through those glossy curls and claiming a much less wet kiss.

But Sherlock was confused, and pulled away a little, questions swirling through his eyes rapidly enough that John felt as if he was staring into a hurricane, one that was fully prepared to devour him but terribly uncertain as to what direction they were going.

"John, what is this?" His voice was softer than John had ever heard it, and he realized in that moment that he had the power to break the unbreakable Sherlock Holmes. But that option had fled a long time ago; he would follow this man anywhere, and the realization that Sherlock was prepared to do the same for him left him with no choice but this, the thing he'd dreamed about but never believed could be real.

"Everything you want it to be, Sherlock." Just as soft, his voice was a mere thread of sound that nonetheless shot straight to the consulting detective's heart, making it beat in a nearly painful tattoo, trying to burst out of his chest entirely. He swallowed once, twice, before reaching up to gently cup John's face. But he wasn't completely reassured yet, and lacked the courage he needed to put their lips together again, after the first time had gone so sideways.

"I thought you weren't gay?" Breathless now, nearly senseless with need and love, Sherlock studied John, trying to find a glimmer of reassurance in his oceanic gaze. Those eyes sparkled for him in a way he'd never seen before, and it made his head spin.

"I'm not. I'm bisexual. I would have thought that the man who can see everything would have seen that, but if you haven't, I'd be happy to show you in as much detail as you want."

Sherlock nodded slowly, not sure how to begin, but John had enough experience for the both of them. He took him apart with sweet, slow kisses, drugging him with tenderness so he barely realized he was being lowered to the sheets, stripped with competent yet sensual hands that seemed to worship his skin, making him feel as if he was glowing from the inside out.

Fire flooded his veins, racing and rocketing through him, and he couldn't have stopped the moans, whimpers, and sighs escaping him even if he'd known it was happening. All he could do was try to hold on to some kind of sanity, and John Watson was the only harbor in this storm. He clung to him even as his clothes disappeared somewhere, and then that talented mouth was roaming over his body, following the path of his hands, and Sherlock was gasping, sobbing at the sensations he'd never known before.

Up, up, up, John took him higher and higher in a way he'd never experienced, and he wondered if he would ever come down. He was Icarus, soaring toward the sun, but his wings weren't dissolving away, and he wasn't plummeting to the earth, crashing and shattering and dying. He'd never felt more alive, and he was astonished when, as John's finger slid inside him to prepare him, their eyes met and John was staring at him with such fire that it was all he could do not to beg him, right then, to go faster.

John prepared him carefully but quickly, trying not to be impatient when everything in him was telling him to claim Sherlock now, before he came to his senses and left. He knew by now that that wouldn't happen, logically, but the fear was only assuaged when he was buried deep inside Sherlock, who made little keening noises and wrapped his legs around John's hips, rocking up against him while his head fell back, exposing that long neck.

By instinct more than design, John found himself burying his face against the base of that graceful slope and biting down, marking him as his hips began to move faster, triggering a climax in both of them that made the world go completely white for a few moments, shouts escaping their lips before their mouths crashed together again, drawing the sensations out a little longer.

Sherlock and John were on the sofa, Sherlock's head in John's lap while his legs dangled off the far end. John had turned on the telly, but neither of them were watching it. They watched each other, instead, trying to gauge one another's feelings. In the end, it was Sherlock who spoke first, which was a surprising but nice break to their usual routine, as far as John was concerned.

"What does this make us, John?" He sounded a little nervous, still, but that didn't stop him from arching into John's touch like a cat when the doctor carded his fingers through that dark mop of curls again, eyes falling closed at the sensation. John smiled; he hadn't realized it was so easy to reduce Sherlock to this peaceful, instinctive creature who was stretched out calmly, for once not focusing on a case or experiment. His entire attention was focused on John, and that was fortunate, because it was mutual.

"Like I told you, Sherlock, it's everything you want it to be." The consulting detective's eyes popped open as he bit his lip, and John felt his heart give a rather enthusiastic thump in his chest. He would, he realized, always be attracted to this sweet, shy part of Sherlock, the part that didn't quite understand relationships and emotions but was trying anyway, for him.

"Does that mean that if I ask you to, you'll stop seeing other people, and be exclusively with me?" Sherlock looked hopeful, and when John nodded, he smiled radiantly, in a way most people wouldn't think the self-proclaimed sociopath would be capable of. But John had long since figured out that it was all an act, the coldness, to hide the tender heart that was Sherlock's biggest secret. He would never have to hide himself around John again, the doctor vowed.

"John, I'm going to be difficult. There will still be days when I won't talk to you, when I won't eat or sleep or have time to do anything but focus on my puzzles. I'll try, for you I'll try, but there will be times when I'll neglect things you think are important and do things you hate. I can't change who and what I am. The brilliance you so admire in me is sometimes a curse, because it means I don't see the world as other people do. Being with me won't be like being with one of your girlfriends."

"Do you think I don't know that? Sherlock, you are what I want. If I seriously wanted the vain, vapid girls who like to use me for a quick tumble and a date whenever they get bored or lonely, I'd have gotten into a serious relationship with one of them long ago. They were just filling my time because I thought I could never have what I really wanted. Having you here, in my arms, is like a dream, one I hope to never wake up from. I know you'll be difficult, and that we'll make one another mad and fight and do all the things we have done all this time, but at the end of it, well… I hear make up sex is fantastic, and to be perfectly honest, I would rather fight with you, just fight with you, than find comfort in someone else's bed."

John had never lied to Sherlock, and the genius knew he wasn't lying now. No matter how cliché it was, he felt as if a huge weight had been lifted off his chest. He sat up, twisted around, and kissed his blogger, trying to express how John's words made him feel.

"I love you," he said when they finally parted, and then rushed on before John could freeze up or try to talk to him gently about rushing things. "I know it's far too soon, and I know it probably doesn't make sense when I've always said that love is a chemical defect, and I know that this world is full of people who don't believe I'm capable of love, and that it might be easy to believe them when I do something moronic and forget to take your feelings into account, let alone address them. But I love you, John Watson, and I have for a very long time, and I don't want to hold it in anymore."

For a long moment, they just stared at one another, Sherlock's chest heaving a little both from the way the confession had torn itself out of him and from the rapid pace he'd delivered it in, barely pausing to suck in air. Then John smiled that beautiful smile that melted Sherlock's defenses completely, and he laughed joyously.

"I love you too, my daft genius. I'm not going to lecture you; I know what it feels like to hold it back when all I've wanted for months was to be able to say those same words to you. I love you, Sherlock Holmes, and you have no idea how incredible it is to know you feel the same way."

Overcome by emotion, Sherlock practically launched himself into John's lap and inadvertently started round two, which ended sprawled in front of the fireplace, clothes strewn about the room, with identical smiles on their faces.

"Next time, let's make an effort to make it to the bedroom. Not that it wasn't hot to have you ripping my clothes off or anything, but you didn't lock the door when you came in earlier, and we have pretty flimsy locks to begin with. I'd hate for your brother or Greg to walk in on us like this." John was still smiling as his fingers casually sketched random patterns on Sherlock's pale, gleaming torso, but the consulting detective made a face.

"We didn't have to worry about that today, on either of their parts. They had a date after Lestrade got off work. They're undoubtedly engaging in similar carnal activities to the ones that we were just doing, though it's not likely I'll be able to resume them, since the image of my brother and Lestrade together is a definite turn-off."

John paused for a moment, stunned by the idea of Greg and Mycroft, then realized it kind of worked. They both understood busy schedules, and they both knew what it was like to take risks in life. They had remarkably similar mindsets, when it came to work and home, and what had made Greg's ex-wife unsuitable for him made Mycroft fit him like a glove.

Then he shrugged the contemplation off for another day, and grinned a little evilly at his lover, who cocked his head in confusion.

"Oh, Sherlock, I'm pretty sure I can get your mind off of your brother and back on me." One of those elegant eyebrows went up again, and it was all John could do to not ravish him on the rug once again. Instead, he swung him up into his arms bridal style, and carried him to the bedroom.

"Was that a bet, my dear Watson?" Sherlock practically purred at the display of machismo, and when John lay him back on the bed and licked his lips, Sherlock's thoughts did, indeed, clear of anything but him.

"No, Sherlock. That was a promise." And John proceeded to take Sherlock by surprise once again, in more ways than one.


End file.
